Father of the Rain by Lily King Page B

about money, and now you’re buying yourself all kinds of things. I guess you sold some of Granny’s jewelry.”
    “What?”
    “I know about how you emptied the safe.”
    “I didn’t—I needed to have some—Jesus. He told you that?”
    “He told me you cleaned it out. I saw it. It’s empty.”
    “I didn’t steal it. I just needed to get some protection, Daley. For you. For me to take care of you. But we’ve agreed now on a settlement.”
    “I wish you’d tell me things, Mom. I wish I knew what they were talking about when they say things like Al Carr. I wish you’d told me you weren’t going to see Sylvie but to meet some guy so he could stick his boner into you.”
    My mother has gone pale. She is pointing a finger at the door. “Go. Go to your room right now.”
    “Go to your crappy shit-hole room, Daley.” The anger is like vomit. I can’t stop it from coming out. “I’m only here five nights a week and I’m not sleeping with anyone, so it makes perfect sense to give me the dark smelly room with the little shitty beds.” I slam her door hard. Bitch, I think. Bitch bitch bitch.

5
     
    School starts. Five new kids join our grade. It’s always the same with new kids. They come on the first day in their public school clothes, their huge pointy collars, polyester blends, and all the wrong shoes, but by the next Monday they’re in topsiders and Bean shoes, the boys with tiny buttons at the tips of their little collars and the girls in wraparound skirts. Then, once they look like the rest of us, they change everything around. No one is in my homeroom with Miss Perth. Mallory, Patrick, Gina, and Neal are all with Mr. Harding. I think on the first day that Neal will explain why he didn’t write back. I stand right behind him in the lunch line, but he never says a word. By Thursday I hear he likes a new girl named Tillie Armstrong. I decide never to speak to him again.
    On Friday I take a suitcase to school and in the afternoon I wait with Patrick and the other kids from his carpool for Mrs. Utley to pick us up. She’s late because she had brownies in the oven. She brings them and we pass the warm pan from the front to the back to the way-back, cutting out huge squares. She’s even brought napkins. The brownies are dense, undercooked, and delicious. Like many of the mothers I’ve seen since I’ve been back, she’s curious about my summer “adventure” and wants me to be sure to say hello to my mother for her. I feel her watching me in the rearview mirror more than she watches the others.
    All week Patrick has been saying there’s going to be a surprise at Myrtle Street, but he won’t tell me what it is. I think maybe my puppy is back, but when Mrs. Utley pulls in I see that the surprise involvesconstruction of some kind. There’s a bulldozer in the driveway and a huge truck piled high with dirt and brush. Embedded in the dirt are glints of pale blue. I grab my bookbag and suitcase, holler out a thank-you, and run. I stop at the stone wall. The rose garden is gone. There’s still the terrace off the living room and the steps leading down, but the scrolled bushes and flower beds, the roses, the fountain, the stone steps, and the iron door leading nowhere are all gone.
    “We’re building a tennis court!” Patrick has big teeth with flecks of white and he flashes them at me until I punch him hard in the stomach.
    “Goddamn,” he gasps, bent over. “I thought you liked tennis.”
    My father comes home from work early on Fridays. He is sitting in that armchair in the kitchen, the dogs pooled at his feet.
    “Well, what do you think?” He’s proud of himself. He wants me to show my shock. He wants that satisfaction.
    “Looks good,” I push out. I go outside again so he won’t see me cry. The bulldozer and the truck have driven away, but the smell clings to the air. The smell of my mother.
    I have to get off the property. I head to the front, and once on the road I know where I’m going. I